


Cambronne's Word

by teamdiverseprotagonists



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo, The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Cambronne is the soldier, Character Study, Gen, also if you look at tiny!tahani's body language when the challenge is announced it is SO SAD, her shoulders are tight she bites her lip her eyes are downcast, les miserables: victor hugo's 'shit', little tahani really did put up with a lot, some1 love this lil socialite she just wants to arrange flowers, the good place season 3 ep 6, the most self-induglent fic in the universe, the soldier is Cambronne, victor hugo spends two chapters raving about Cambonne's bravery and courage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2018-11-10
Packaged: 2019-08-21 16:17:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16579892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teamdiverseprotagonists/pseuds/teamdiverseprotagonists
Summary: Tahani's painting is going into the fireplace during the al-Jamil's party party honoring Francois Mitterrand, and she knows it.





	Cambronne's Word

“Girls, we have a new challenge for you,” says Father.

“Each of you has four hours to complete a rendering of your favorite moment in French military history!” says Mother.

“The winning painting shall be hung in our foyer during our party honoring Francois Mitterrand. The losing painting shall provide the kindling for the fire that rages in the fire in our hearth during that party,” says Father.

Tahani can feel her shoulders slump. Fractionally. She’s much too well bred to let that sort of thing be noticeable.

From the time they were small, Kamilah has always been the greater talent with a brush and easel. Colors flow from her fingers, her canvas a riot of greens and blues and spinning reds. On their last trip to the Musée d'Orsay, Kamillah’s eagle eye had spotted a Van Gogh forgery hanging in the East Wing. To spare the museum international embarrassment, Kamilah had offered to produce a different forgery, so true to Vincent's vision only she would ever be able to tell the work wasn’t an original Van Gogh.

The museum accepted.

Tahani also knows how to paint. She took figure drawing at age five and can spot inadequate brush technique a mile off. But her strength lies with people. Organizing, greeting, managing with a smile and a quip. If Mother and Father had needed a planner, not a painter, Tahani could have pulled it off. She could have stood a chance. She could have shown her parents she wasn’t what they said: a failure. But Mother and Father didn’t need a planner. They needed an artist.

“Doesn’t that sound wonderful?” Mother asks.

“Yes Mother, it does.”

Tahani would never be so crass as to drag her feet, but the distance between her and the easel seems eternal, stretching out before her.

“Thank you for this opportunity,” Kamilah says from behind her, smug. Tahani feels a moment of blinding hatred for her sister, standing straight-backed and confidant before their parents. Perfect Kamilah, with her combat boots and her overalls and her hair piled high on her head. There is a perfect Van Gogh replica hanging inconspicuously on the walls of the Musee d'Orsay. Kamilah knows it, and so does Tahani.

The girls take their place, and Father’s watch clicks.

For a moment, Tahani wonders if it’s even worth to put paint to canvas. Flames don’t care about color. Blue, gold, red; eventually everything gets burned to black.

Tahani glances up. Across from her, Kamilah’s gaze is sharp and focused on the canvas in front of her. She raises her paintbrush, purposeful.

And suddenly, Tahani knows her favorite moment in French military history.

There was a story, an anecdote in a book filled with them, of the last French soldier standing on the Waterloo battlefield. The soldier was an unremarkable officer, trying to hold the line against the advancing English troops. He was alone. His bullets were gone. The flag was a rag next to him. As the English surrounded this officer, the soldier realized there was no escape, no way out, no way to win. The man had stood up, and screamed in the faces of the advancing soldiers. He railed against his inevitable defeat, his surrender, with the only weapon left to him -- his words. Staring into the face of Wellington’s men, this man had let forth a volley, a scream, a censored swear; and from his defeat, had salvaged his dignity.

Tahani had read this book when she was young. For the most part, she hadn’t really enjoyed it. Everyone had sounded so _miserable_. But she still remembered the line: “To thunder forth such a reply at the lightning-flash that kills you is to conquer!”

The lightning flash had come. It stood six feet across from her, hair piled high and eyes focused.

Tahani felt her mouth twitch. She was not winning this challenge. Her painting would burn cheerfully as Kamilah’s work hung proudly in the foyer. But she could scream her own obscenities, she could salvage her own dignity from her defeat. “To hurl a challenge to the midnight rainstorm...to have the laugh on your side after such a carnage,—this is immense!”

In big bold strokes, Tahani splashes Cambronne’s word across the center of her canvas. It was going in the fire anyway. Might as well give her parents something they would be happy to burn.

**Author's Note:**

> For the record, Cambronne just screams "SHIT" at the advancing Englishmen and I'm imagining Tahani turning her picture around when the four hours is up and it's just a stick figure with a speech bubble filled with obscenities and like, a shaky tricolor in the background. 
> 
> Kamilah paints a historically-accurate mural of every battle in the Hundred Years War.


End file.
